Phil Bradley's Snow-shoe Trail Part 13

"It's all right, bub, we're your friends, and mean to keep you here with us until your daddy comes along for you. Went out hunting, eh, and got lost? Well, never mind, plenty of bigger men than you have done the same thing. You tried the best you knew how to light a fire, too; and I believe you'd have done it if the ground had been clear of snow, so you could find plenty of small wood. But supper will be ready soon, and we're expecting you to be pretty hungry."

Somehow there was that about Phil Bradley to invite the confidence of any one, especially when he smiled as Phil was doing now, and spoke so soothingly, and directly from the heart.

It was not long before he had the little chap smiling; and when Lub came over into the shelter with a cup of warm soup for the boy, he drank it ravenously. This told Phil that it must have been many hours since the child had tasted any food.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he left his home, wherever that can be, early this morning, and had been pushing his way through the snow ever since. No wonder he was all tired out, and couldn't say a word, but keep on moaning. But he's all right now."

"If they start out and follow his trail," ventured X-Ray, with one of those bright inspirations that had given him his nick-name, "they'll show up here in our camp some time or other, I should say. Whee! I hope now, that terror of the pines will be reasonable, and believe what we tell him; that is, I don't want him to suspect we tried to kidnap Johnny here."

"By the way, I wonder what his name really is?" said Lub.

"Ask him, Phil; he seems to think a heap of you already," suggested X-Ray.

Accordingly Phil bent over the boy, while the others crowded around.

"We want to know whose boy you are, and what your name is, my little man. Do they call you Johnny at home?" he asked, and as clearly as possible.

The small urchin shook his curly head vigorously; he even in a measure returned Phil's smile; and then started to make a series of unintelligible noises that sent a thrill through Phil's heart.

The latter turned with piteous look toward his chums, whose faces reflected his expression of commiseration, almost horror.

"No wonder he didn't say anything, boys!" exclaimed Phil; "for don't you see the poor little chap is tongue-tied?"

CHAPTER X

A RUDE AWAKENING

"The poor little kid!" gasped warm-hearted Lub, as he impulsively threw an arm around the boy they were entertaining as their guest in camp.

Both X-Ray Tyson and Ethan also betrayed their intense interest by sympathetic looks that spoke volumes.

"I don't know that I ever ran across a case just like this," X-Ray remarked, as he turned on Phil.

"You mean that while you've met people who were deaf and dumb you never saw one who was what they call tongue-tied; is that it, X-Ray?" the latter asked.

"Yes, you've got it straight, Phil; but tell me, is this sort of thing incurable?"

"It all depends on the conditions," was the reply. "Some are afflicted worse than others; and then again I believe that if it's taken in hand at an early stage there's much more chance of the operation being successful than if it becomes an old affliction."

"But my stars, why haven't the parents of this fine little chap looked after it before now?" demanded Ethan.

"Well, when you're saying that, just stop and think what you're up against," Phil told him. "We're not down in New York City, where paid doctors visit the poorer sections, and there are wards in all hospitals where such operations can be undertaken free of expense. This is away up in the wilds of Canada."

"Like as not," interrupted Lub, "his folks never dreamed that any remedy could be found to help him get his speech. I reckon now his mammy has grieved her heart sore many a time wondering what would become of a boy growing up to manhood who'd never be able to say a single intelligible word."

"Yes," added Ethan, bent on entering another wedge to the debate, "and money has a heap to do with these things, even if they did know. It costs considerable to send a boy all the way down to Montreal, and keep him there, not to speak of the doctor's big fee."

Phil looked grave, and then a smile began to slowly creep athwart his face. This was discovered by the sharp-eyed X-Ray, for he quickly demanded an explanation.

"You've thought of _something_, Phil; that look gives you away. Now speak up and confide in your chums. We're all just as much interested in this queer business as you can be, I want you to remember. What's caught you?"

Phil smiled in even a broader sense.

"Why, to be sure you have a right to know, fellows," he told them, frankly. "I'm not intending to keep it a secret. I was just wondering why I shouldn't try and take this little chap down with me when we leave here, and see that he has one good chance to have this impediment to his speech removed. We can go to Montreal without a great deal of trouble; and in fact we had decided that we'd visit there, as we saw Old Quebec on the way up to the Saguenay region. What d'ye think of it?"

"I object!" burst out Lub, to the surprise of his mates.

"Why, what's got you, Lub?" demanded X-Ray, indignantly; "I always thought you'd be the last one to kick up a row, when a thing like this was being talked over."

"I object on the grounds that it isn't fair for Phil to take the burden all on himself," continued the stout chum, resolutely, with his affectionate arm still hovering about the small boy, who had cuddled closer to him, as though recognizing a warm friend in Lub.

"Oh! I haven't said I meant to do that, Lub!" exclaimed Phil.

"Well, we know you too well to believe it wasn't in your mind to stand for every cent of the expense such an operation would cost," continued the fat boy. "Course you wouldn't feel it any more'n a flea-bite; but then that isn't the question. You've got to think of us. We cut some punkins in this arrangement, and we insist on standing our share of any expense. How's that, X-Ray, Ethan?"

"Bully for you, Lub!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the former, enthusiastically, slapping the fat chum on the shoulder with almost crushing force that made Lub wince, though he immediately forced a broad smile to dominate his rosy face.

"Share and share alike, that's the ticket!" declared Ethan, though doubtless the poor fellow was at the same time making a rapid mental calculation as to the state of his finances, for he had no private fortune, or rich parents, or doting aunt to help him tide over. "I've got another bundle of ginseng roots ready to ship down to my dealer, and if they fetch anything like the splendid price the last lot did I can spare enough to square my share of the bill. And I'll do it willingly too, if it's the means of giving this little fellow the gift of speech."

There never were four boys quite as generous as Phil Bradley and his chums. Fond of manly sport they were, and full of a love for frolic, and such good times as came their way; but never failing to respond to a call for help, no matter what the source from which the appeal came.

Phil threw up both hands as if in surrender.

"You never will let me do anything like this by myself, fellows," he told them; "even when I've got money to burn. But I want to say right here that I think ten times as much of you, Lub, X-Ray and Ethan, as if you did. It means something to all of you to make this sacrifice, while to me it isn't a bit of difference. So I say and I repeat it, that you deserve a whole lot more credit than I ever can. And what's more, I'm as proud as anything to shake hands with such chums."

He gravely went around pumping a hand of each fellow, and there was a deal of sincerity in the act, even though they all laughed--perhaps to hide the fact that there might be a suspicious moisture in their rapidly winking eyes.

"Isn't it queer how we seem to rub up against something of this kind everywhere we go on our trips?" remarked X-Ray.

"Why, so it is," Ethan added; "in the first place, when we were in the Adirondacks there was that old hermit and his little girl, Mazie; we had a hand in bringing them a measure of joy, and reuniting Meredith with his estranged wife. They've been writing ever since how grateful they were on account of the little we managed to do for them."

"Yes," Lub hurriedly continued, "and even around our home town of Brewster, when we were gathering nuts for the children in the orphan asylum remember how we had a chance to help that country boy, Casper Bunce, who had run away from the farmer he had been bound to. The courts fixed all that, and he's got a happy home now on the farm of Miss Bowers."

"Even down on the Sh.o.r.e, when we were duck shooting on Currituck Sound,"

X-Ray went on to say, not wishing to be left out entirely, "we managed to bridge over the troubles between the young bayman Malachi Jordon, his little wife, and her savage old dad who was separating the couple. When we left they were all bunched and waving us good-by."

"It does seem to be the bounden duty of the Mountain Boys to carry some sunshine along with them wherever they go," laughed Phil; "and to tell you the truth I'm not so very much surprised."

"You mean it's getting to be a regular thing with us; is that it, Phil?"

questioned Lub.

"That's what you might call it, when you keep on repeating a certain thing," Phil declared. "There's an old chestnut of a story you may remember that ill.u.s.trates the point I'm making. It seems that a lawyer was trying to get a witness to admit a certain point that would favor his side of the case, and the old fellow kept on doggedly avoiding committing himself. So the lawyer asked him what he would call it if he leaned from the window and fell out. 'I'd call that an accident,'

replied the witness. 'Then suppose you deliberately walked up-stairs and repeated the identical performance, what would you call that?' demanded the lawyer. 'Oh! I should say that was a coincidence,' the witness told him. 'Well, now what if you even went up again, and for the third time looked out of that same window, only to fall again; what would you call it?' And the witness without the least hesitation bawled out: 'Why, sir, I'd say it was a _habit_!' And that's what it's getting to be with us Mountain Boys."

Of course they all laughed at Phil's description of the condition into which it seemed they were drifting.